


A date with the fishes (and Haru)

by popnographic



Series: SouHaru drabbles [3]
Category: Free!
Genre: A fishy date (haha get it), Aquariums, Fish, Fluff, M/M, Silly bickering, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 01:50:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4588461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popnographic/pseuds/popnographic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sousuke takes Haru on a date long overdue. An <i>actual</i> date, as Rin would put it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A date with the fishes (and Haru)

**Author's Note:**

> [Iska](http://iskabee.tumblr.com) read my tags on a Tumblr post, and (apparently drunk and sleep deprived) suggested I'd write a fic based on them. So, here it is. This one's for you, Iska. (brings out guitar)
> 
> (I can't play the guitar.)

"You know”, Rin says with a bored tone, “you’re possibly the worst person I know at coming up with a date idea. Wait, scratch that. You  _are_  the worst. Dinner and a film is like  _so_  ‘90s.”

Sousuke throws a pillow at Rin, but his friend ends up catching it in the last microsecond. “Fuck you, too. How about the aquarium, then? They recently reopened, and it looks pretty cool.”

“ _Now_  we’re talking. He’s gonna be all over you, I bet.”

"I'd hope so", Sousuke replies with a roll of his eyes.

To be fair, there's no way Haruka  _won't_ like the idea. There'll be water and fishes, what's there not to like? Okay, so maybe he won't be allowed to swim in the fish tanks, but that doesn't mean he can't enjoy their date... does it?

"You don't think he's gonna be annoyed at the absence of a body of water he can actually jump into?"

Rin snorts a laugh and sits up again. "Maybe, but you'll just have to keep him occupied. It'll be fine, stop freaking out. When do you plan on taking him out?"

"Saturday, I guess. Neither of us work, and Sunday is usually the day he spends at the communal pool. You, if anyone, should know that, since you race him like every other Sunday."

"Hey, I didn't say anything about Sunday. But okay, sounds like a great plan. Good luck?"

Sousuke doesn't like the invisible question mark at the end of Rin's good luck wish, but he decides not to dwell on it. He can do this. It's just a date at an aquarium... with a guy whose love for water sometimes makes Sousuke jealous. Okay, so maybe it'll be a  _little_ difficult, but that doesn't mean he won't try.

 

* * *

 

Haruka's eyes widen. He blinks in confusion, looking as if he's doubting what Sousuke's just suggested, and Sousuke, in turn, is offended by the reaction he gets. Jeez, it's not like he _proposed_ or anything — it's just a  _date_. _  
_

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. What, you don't want to?"

"I do, it's just— I didn't expect that. From you."

Sousuke frowns. "How the hell am I supposed to take _that_?"

Haru smiles and stands on his toes to kiss his boyfriend on the cheek. "It's a good thing, relax. I would love to go."

"Oh. Okay. Well, good. Because I'm shit at planning dates as is", Sousuke says and frowns, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

It's true that the two of them haven't gone on too many dates in the time they've been together, and Sousuke wants that to change. And even though Rin says he shouldn't let Haru settle for a 'date' where all they do is lie on the couch and watch TV, he knows that's something they both enjoy doing since they at least get to be together. They don't need much to enjoy each other's company, and that's one thing Sousuke really likes about their relationship.

"Good thing I turned down a playdate with the twins on Saturday, then", Haru says. "Makoto asked earlier, but I said I wasn't feeling up for it. Not in the mood for being around kids."

"But it's on Saturday."

"I won't be in the mood by then, either."

Sousuke shrugs. "Whatever you say."

No matter what he does and how hard he tries, Sousuke's all jittery and almost  _giddy_ during the days leading up to their date. Rin knows, and even though he isn't saying anything, the looks he's giving Sousuke combined with that goddamn smirk of his drives Sousuke up the wall.

"You know you're acting like a little schoolgirl going on her first date, right?"

"Fuck off", Sousuke bites back, and takes a sip from his Coke can. "Some of us haven't been together for an eternity and a half like  _some others_."

"What are you— oh. We haven't been together  _that_ long. Two years? Two and a half? Don't tell Makoto I don't remember. Our anniversary's probably coming up and I wouldn't have a clue."

Sousuke snorts and rolls his eyes. "Your secret's safe with me. But you two act like you've been together for like twenty years. You're practically married a this point."

And he's not even exaggerating; he and Haru have on numerous occasions talked about just how married Rin and Makoto act for the most part. Sousuke and Haru are of the more discreet kind, rarely ever displaying any kinds of affection among other people. And if they do, it's because they're drunk. Which has happened, and they've both agreed since to never drink that much when with friends ever again.

"Whatever. I like it as it is", Rin says, and he sounds  _proud_ , which just makes Sousuke laugh. He can't deny that he feels a little jealous, though.

 

* * *

 

Saturday finally rolls around, and Sousuke finds himself standing in front of the mirror trying to decide on what shirt to wear. He really  _does_ act like a little schoolgirl about to go on her first date, he realises as he sighs in frustration and throws the shirt he's currently wearing into the laundry bin by the door. They're just going to an  _aquarium_ , Haru will probably not even as much as  _look_ at him while they're there, since there'll be far more interesting to lay his eyes upon.

Suddenly he wonders if taking Haru to an aquarium is such a good idea, after all, since his attention will be heavily rivalled. Would Sousuke be able to steal even an ounce of it for himself?

He's supposed to pick Haru up at two, and he's got a little under twenty minutes until then. They're taking his car, and from Haru's house, it's just a five minute ride. Which means he should leave right about now for them to be on time. But to be fair, he should be better off than his boyfriend. Sousuke's heard horror stories from Makoto about Haru always having them end up late wherever they go, since he sits in the bath tub for too long.

Of course he does. Sousuke can't help but smile at the thought, even though he knows he'd be greatly inconvenienced and probably slightly annoyed if it happened to him. Seriously, Makoto's got the patience of a saint; that guy doesn't get enough credit for everything he does and has to put up with, not only with Haru but everyone else around them.

Eventually, Sousuke finds a dark blue, almost navy, polo shirt he pulls on along with his black jeans, spraying once with his cologne underneath said shirt, and he's out the door. Why does it have to be so difficult just to get ready for a date, at an aquarium nonetheless? Maybe he should've just stuck with his original plan; a dinner out somewhere, and then the cinema. And not to toot his own horn or sound  _too_ confident (okay, who are we kidding, that's  _totally_ what he wants), but Sousuke doesn't think their date would end there.

He just hopes it'll have the same outcome even though their date will now be spent at the Iwami Aquarium.

Sousuke drives the short distance to Haru's house, and parks down the street before he begins ascending the steps up to said house. As usual, there are cats on the little pathway between Haru's and Makoto's houses, and Sousuke stops for a few seconds to scratch one of them behind the ear. It's too bad his apartment building doesn't allow pets, because Sousuke could easily see himself have a cat or two. If anything to just keep him company on days when he isn't spending time with Haru.

Having finally arrived outside Haru's house, Sousuke takes a deep breath to prepare himself, and then rings the doorbell. It takes him a few seconds to remember that Haru rarely answers the door himself, and that people are generally expected to just walk in since he might be in the bath. How has this guy not been robbed or had a break-in yet?

"Haruka, it's me", he says as he opens the door and walks in to quickly remove his shoes and continue further inside the house. Down the hallway lies the bathroom, and that's Sousuke's first — and probably only — stop. He knocks on the door there, and announces his presence, waits a few seconds. When there's no reply, he frowns in confusion. "Haruka?"

"I'm here", he hears coming from the other side of the house, and he turns around to see Haruka coming down the stairs. Oh, so he  _wasn't_ in the bath. Sousuke's pretty sure even Makoto would be surprised by this. Haruka's dressed in a white v-neck with a light-blue thin button-up over it, accompanied by a pair of stonewashed black capri trousers. He looks far too good, and Sousuke immediately feels under-dressed when laying his eyes upon Haruka.

"Hey", he says lamely, his brain having short-circuited a few seconds ago. "You, er... look good."

Haruka rolls his eyes, but Sousuke does detect the very faint blush atop his cheekbones. "Let's just go. Are we taking your car?"

"Of course we are", Sousuke replies. It'd take us probably half an hour to walk there, and while I'm all for a good exercise, I'm not willing to do that in these clothes.

Haru snorts. "Point taken."

Having seated themselves in the car and fastened their seatbelts, Sousuke starts up the engine and begins backing out. He discreetly — well, that's what he hopes — looks at Haruka in the corner of his eye as he begins driving towards the Iwami Aquarium, and he swallows hard. How the hell did he end up with such an out-of-this-world beauty like Nanase Haruka? Considering the way Sousuke treated him in the past, he still doesn't feel like he deserves his boyfriend.

So maybe he can at least start to make up for his past mistakes today.

The two of them arrive just after two in the afternoon, but to Sousuke's surprise, there aren't as many people as one would expect on a Saturday afternoon. There are a few families, though, but it still isn't crowded by any means. It's only a good thing, however, meaning less people standing crowded around the different fish tanks. Neither of them really do well with big crowds, anyway, so that's just making it easier on them in general.

Sousuke pays for their tickets, and just as they reach the signs pointing in all directions, Haruka immediately nudges Sousuke in the side.

"Dolphins", he says. "Can we go see the dolphins?"

He eyes the sign labelled ' _Dolphin lagoon_ ' and shrugs. "Fine. But I have a feeling you won't like what you see."

Haru frowns. "Why not? They're  _dolphins_ , Sousuke", he says, as if his answer is the most obvious thing ever. And it isn't. Sousuke sighs.

"Whatever, don't say I didn't warn you."

He's been to aquariums before, and he knows what those dolphin lagoons are. Any kind of lagoon with a sea creature or twenty of the same kind swimming around in it. It's a zoo, people standing around and watching said animal just swim around, occasionally doing tricks — Sousuke has a feeling that's what they'll see the dolphins do — and he isn't so sure Haruka will like what he sees.

 

* * *

 

Haruka  _doesn't_ like what he sees when they arrive at the dolphin lagoon. There are people standing around a pool-like basin, and there are four dolphins swimming around, doing tricks at the command of the dolphin trainers standing by the sides in wetsuits. Children are cheering the dolphins on, their parents standing with them and smiling intently. Sousuke looks at Haru by his side, and he sees true horror plastered on his boyfriend's face.

"This is wrong", Haru says. "How can they do this? Look at the poor dolphins, they aren't happy like this."

Sousuke raises an eyebrow in concern mixed with slight disbelief. "No offence, Haruka — but you don't really know that. Maybe they are, maybe they're actually treated well here."

He doesn't have time to react before Haruka instinctively walks up to the giant basin the dolphins are in, and the look on his face must've scared the kids away, because they're making way for Haruka, looking like what Sousuke thinks it must've looked like when Moses parted the Red Sea. Haruka stops by the edge, and he reaches a hand out to the nearest dolphin, which hesitantly swims up to nudge its nose against Haruka's hand.

"Haruka, get  _away_ from there!" Sousuke barks, but one of the trainers gives Sousuke a smile and a reassuring look.

"Your friend will be fine; these dolphins are well-trained and very friendly."

Sousuke's eye twitches. Friend? Lady needs to get her ass into the twenty-first century, that's for sure. Okay, so maybe they aren't masters of PDA and constantly show the world how much they like each other, but it must still be pretty damn obvious that Sousuke and Haru aren't just  _friends_.

And the second problem; how are they supposed to leave this place now that Haru looks like he wants to chain himself to the dolphin pool and never leave?

With a deep sigh, Sousuke walks up to his boyfriend and taps him on the back. "Come on, let's go. There's other places we can go to. There's sea turtles and manatees on the other side of the park?" he tries. Haru looks back at him, and he frowns.

"We can't just  _leave_ them like this, Sousuke", he says as he gently pets the dolphin's nose, hand running up to the top of its head. "Look at her, she looks so unhappy like this."

"Don't say that out loud", Sousuke hisses. "And again, you don't know that for sure. How do you know it's a female to begin with?"

"It is", the trainer says behind him. "She's a girl. Your friend's got a good eye for dolphins."

Sousuke heaves an inward sigh. "Uh-huh, looks like it. Well, I want to see other places of this park before I leave for the day, so can we please go?"

"You're the one who took me here", Haru grumbles, and Sousuke rolls his eyes. He goes to one of the benches not too far away, and lets Haruka sit by the dolphins for a while. He wonders if Haruka would really go through with that unspoken plan of his, to free the dolphins. Would Nanase Haruka really become one of those treehugger activists who break into places at night to free animals and get arrested over it?

... He would, wouldn't he?

"Alright, Haruka, let's go", Sousuke says after a few minutes of letting Haruka sit and pet the dolphin with that tragic look on his face. Several children around him have started to look uncomfortable, so Sousuke knows this is their cue to leave the area before they get themselves thrown out. And maybe then they won't be allowed to see the other parts of the aquarium, and that isn't what this day is about.

Very reluctantly, Haru gets up from his spot on the ground next to the dolphin pool. He gives the female dolphin one last pet on the head before he turns to Sousuke with a glare. "Fine. You want to see sea turtles? Let's go, then."

 

* * *

 

To Sousuke's relief, the weird tension between them quickly dissipates on their way towards the sea turtle pool, where they walk through an area where you can look down straight into a giant tropical fish tank; hundreds of fish swimming around just below them. Haru stops just by the railing on the walkway, and Sousuke has to stop, too, and stand next to his boyfriend.

"Pretty", he says, and Haru just nods in agreement. They haven't even made it downstairs to the fish tanks yet, and they're already able to see so much of what the aquarium has to offer. So maybe this  _wasn't_ such a bad idea, after all, judging by the look of awe Haruka has on his face. Sousuke bites his lower lip to not grin like an idiot when he steals a glance at his boyfriend from the side, and he feels bad when he has to eventually tug on Haru's shirt so they can move along to see things from a better angle downstairs.

"Hey, let's skip the sea turtles and just go down to see the fish instead. Seems more interesting."

Haru agrees, and they walk across the walkway to the staircase leading down. Just past the staircase, Sousuke spots a giant statue of what looks like a whale, and now it's his time to stop.

"Look at  _that_ thing", he says, and Haru stops to look as well. "Weird looking whale, that's for sure."

"That's not a whale", Haru replies with a snort. "It's a whale  _shark_."

Sousuke rolls his eyes. "Still got half of it right. Wonder if they've got one of those here."

"I doubt it. It reminds me of you."

"How?"

"Because it's big."

Frowning, Sousuke looks at Haruka, feeling offended. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"It's a big thing. I like that you are."

His mind goes straight down the gutter, and Sousuke coughs into his sleeve to hide the blush colouring his cheeks. Instead of arguing further on why the hell he reminds his boyfriend of a goddamn whale shark, Sousuke takes Haru down the stairs to the actual aquarium, where they're both completely blown away by the sight that greets them inside.

There's fish literally  _everywhere_ around them. Not only to their sides, but above their heads, too, having been what they saw when they walked down the stairs just a minute ago. It's absolutely beautiful, and like Haruka, Sousuke finds himself completely entranced by the sight. There are fish in all kinds of sizes, colours and species, a lot of them Sousuke hasn't even seen before. It looks like something taken straight from the Discovery Channel, and it's weird to see it all in person. Well, except that these fish are behind glass, and Sousuke isn't really standing close to them.

He looks to his side, and just the sight of Haruka seemingly infatuated with the view of the fish around them makes their date at the aquarium worth it. The lights inside the tanks combined with the colour of the sky reflecting down into the water from above reflects itself in Haru's eyes in a way that almost takes Sousuke's breath away. Once again being reminded by his boyfriend's sheer beauty, Sousuke swallows and forces himself to look at the fish swimming around in the tanks around them.

"So was it worth coming here in the end, despite the dolphin thing?" Sousuke asks, glancing at Haru after a few minutes of silence between the two. But Haru doesn't seem to hear him as he's still just standing there and watching the fish swim around him, and Sousuke wonders for a second if Haru feels the same way for these fishes as he did for the dolphins. "Oi, Haruka, you listening?"

Haruka turns to him and blinks in confusion, as if someone snapped their fingers and brought him back out of a hypnosis. "Did you say something?"

Sousuke rolls his eyes, but can't keep the smile off his face. "I asked if you still think it was worth coming here despite the dolphin thing."

"Oh. Yeah, I do. Thank you for bringing me here", Haru says, and there's a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I think we should try and rescue them."

"What?"

"The dolphins."

" _Hell_ no! Haruka, they're—"

"Kidding", Haruka says and lightly elbows him in the side. "I know you wouldn't agree to that."

Sousuke stares at his boyfriend with a slightly horrified expression. He wonders if it'll be safe to leave Haru to his own devices after this, if Haru would actually go back here to try and rescue the dolphins. He pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales a sigh. "Please don't do anything dumb, Haruka. I'm not bailing your ass out of jail if you get caught."

"What ever do you  _mean_?" Haruka asks with feigned innocence, and Sousuke groans.

After a quick bite to eat at the little café, Sousuke and Haru visit the gift shop on their way out of the aquarium, having spent nearly four hours at the aquarium by now. It's been a long, fun day, but all Sousuke wants now is to be back home. Preferably with some company, but he doesn't know what Haru feels about that just yet.

He insists on buying whatever souvenirs Haru decides on wanting to get despite his boyfriend's protests — "you've paid for everything today, at least let me buy my own souvenirs" — and Haru ends up buying the largest dolphin plush Sousuke's ever laid his eyes upon. He stares at Haruka in disbelief when Haru takes the 'toy' off of the counter when it's all paid for.

"Really, Haruka? First of all, why do you need that big of a plush? Second, I'm never gonna be able to fit that into the boot of my car. _Never_."

Haru looks at it with a look of  _affection_ , and then smiles a little. "Stop being so negative. It could remind me of you. Here, hug it."

He shoves the big plush into Sousuke's arms, and Sousuke takes a step back in surprise. "What the  _hell_ , I'm not gonna—"

"I want it to smell like you so I can think of you when I hug it."

That shuts Sousuke right up. He doesn't hug it until they're outside the aquarium grounds, though. Even then, he makes sure there aren't any people around to see him hug a goddamn plush toy.

 

* * *

 

When Sousuke stops the car outside Haru's house, Haru looks out through the window for a few seconds before almost hesitantly turning back to Sousuke. "Thanks... for today. I enjoyed it."

"Good", Sousuke mutters, before he comes back to his senses. "I... I liked it, too. And I'm glad you did. I'll see you soon?"

Haru nods, and his smile sets Sousuke's heart on fire. "Yeah."

Feeling bold and brave, Sousuke leans forward over the gear-shift and plants a quick kiss on Haruka's lips. "Good. See you soon, then."

He drives home with a ridiculously wide smile on his face, glad no one's around to see it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I brought the giant dolphin plush back from [this fic prompt](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4191630/chapters/10319868), fight me.
> 
> Since I've never been to an aquarium in my entire life, I had to actually get people to tell me what the hell those places look like, and what you can do besides looking at fish. So, huge thanks to [iskabee](http://iskabee.tumblr.com), [daxii](http://daxii.tumblr.com) and [holdontoyourhulahoops](http://holdontoyourhulahoops.tumblr.com), plus the very kind anon on Tumblr, for the help! I have seriously missed out on something, and hope to one day remedy this.


End file.
